Dr. Kokaliari Effrosyni, Professor of Social Work at Springfield College, USA, and external collaborator of the Laboratory for Applied Social Research and Social Work gave three important lectures in the postgraduate program “Interdisciplinary Social Interventions in Crisis Situations”. These lectures were held in the course “Prevention and Treatment of health and Mental Health issues of Social Work Practice” and covered the following topics:
- Neurobiology of trauma, attachment, and the somatic imprint. Treating the Soma first. Interventions for clinical social work: In this session, we explored how the trauma response manifests not only as fears, phobias, dissociation nightmares, and panic attacks, but also as chronic pain, gastrointestinal issues, fatigue, and headaches. We then learned some basic interventions to reduce tension in the CNS in parallel with talk therapy.
- ADHD and its differentiation from trauma Assessment tools and clinical interventions: In this session, we added the topic of ADHD as it often accompanies traumatic experiences. We learned some tools to measure both and techniques to help with attention and organization.
- Self-injury and Suicide. Preventive Social Work interventions: In this presentation, we learned how to assess and differentiate self-injury and suicide. We explored different assessment tools, explored relational techniques, and added basic breathing techniques to our tool kit.
Finally, during her visit she gave a speech to all undergraduate and postgraduate students of the Department of Social Work on a very crucial issue concerning the impact of new technologies in Social Work education “AI and social work pedagogy. Bringing together excitement diversity and knowledge in the fast-changing classroom“.
